Planet of the Apes (1968) is a Crusade Against God

There are a lot of movies that tell us to disobey God, or insist that He doesn’t exist. Most of them are implicit, simply showing us how a sinful behavior is actually beneficial, or pushing the idea that all authority or authority figures are corrupt. Some movies, however, get more bold. Some of them take the subject of God and religion head-on, screaming with tenacity of its evil. Planet of the Apes is such a film.

But before getting into the analytical details, let’s take a look at the setting of the film itself. Planet of the Apes was released in 1968 and stars Charlton Heston, an astronaut who, along with fellow Americans, lands in the distant future on what they think is Earth, until they find humans acting like animals, and a society of sentient apes controlling them as the intelligent species of this new mysterious place. Taylor’s (Heston) companions are all killed in a man hunt by the apes, while he is captured and taken back to the Apes’ home.

Having a damaged throat at first, Taylor has no way of communicating to the Apes that he can speak. Over time, he manages to communicate this to the zoologist, Zira. When he finally is able to speak, she believes him, and claims that he could be proof of the supposedly crackpot theories of her fiancé Cornelius. Cornelius believes that the sacred writings of their religion are inadequate to explain their origins, and instead believes that they evolved from humans into apes.

Starting to sound familiar yet?

But Dr. Zaius, who holds a position of authority both as a cranky theologian and as a scientist, isn’t so sympathetic. He believes that Taylor is an animal who holds no rights, and deserves to be put down. He also has no tolerance for the theories of Cornelius, even as evidence for his theories continue to rise up throughout the film, particularly at its conclusion. So instead of appealing to reason, after seeing the brutal condemning tribunal and the brutality and arrogance of the enforcers of the status quo, Taylor and his ape friends decide that, to do the right thing, they have to rebel against the authority figures that are in place.

The particularly remarkable thing in this story is that Taylor doesn’t really want to stay and change things in that society. He just wants to be free to go his own way. But the monarchs of this dystopian ape society aren’t content to let him leave. They are insistent that they must have dominion over him, or else they are not content.

There’s so much here, it’s hard to even know where to begin.

Let’s start with Cornelius. The guy is a revolutionary scientist who believes that apes evolved from men. Obviously, Cornelius is meant to represent Charles Darwin, as well as evolutionary science as a whole. The entire narrative is really about evolution versus God. Even if you wanted to argue that evolution and Christianity are not mutually exclusive (which they are), the film makes it clear that, in its world, that is the case. Religion has kept Cornelius from presenting his reasonable theories. Religion has kept him from giving a sentient being basic rights. Religion has impeded progress.

Part of me wants to launch into a narrative about how science doesn’t disprove God, and how science overwhelmingly gives evidence for a creator. But this isn’t a science blog. And part of me suspects I’d be preaching to the choir. So instead, I’m going to focus on the worldview of the movie.

Despite the film’s rather generous depiction of evolution, the true problem in the film’s worldview lies elsewhere. It lies in the depiction of religion, and the religious. According to these filmmakers, religion is inherently closed-minded, oppressive, and intellectually dishonest. Dr. Zaius even destroys evidence of Cornelius’s theories!

Then, there’s the plot’s conclusion. The only way to combat the evils of religion is to rebel against it, violently, if necessary. The religious can’t be reasoned with. They can’t see outside of their pitiful little worlds. They are not misunderstood friends. They are enemies.

That’s what this film is saying. That’s what it’s about. The religious are enemies to reason, foes to progress. With that said, the more recent installment, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, wasn’t setting up the same religion vs. science war. Will it in the future? I don’t know. I haven’t seen Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. I don’t know what the filmmakers have planned. But I do know this. The franchise is built on an anti-Christian foundation. That alone is reason to be skeptical.

7 comments on “Planet of the Apes (1968) is a Crusade Against God”

Isn’t religion suppose to be closed minded? If we believe that our way is the only way and that everyone else is wrong why would we allow ourselves to be openminded? Isn’t there something in the Bible about guarding your mind and your heart? To be open minded we would have to say that it is possible that we are wrong, and we would never do that because we know without a shadow of a doubt that we are right, and to be open to anything else would show a lack in our faith. Now, because of this close mindedness we are at odds with evolution and the scientific community. Christianity has a long history of stopping progress out of fear, we have silenced, tortured, and even killed scientists that claimed the earth was round or we revolved around the sun. So, yes in many ways we have stalled progress and we are viewed as the enemy by a large part of the scientific community, but to that I say, “so what?”. We should stop trying to say that you can mesh science and religion. God is the only answer and science and scientists that go against God are our enemy!

True science, based on observation and experimentation, can be meshed with God, because it shows evidence for Him. Evolution, on the other hand, is not scientifically valid. At best it’s a theory, and there are alternate theories which explain the evidence equally as well (better, in my opinion) which account for the existence of God.

I’d also say, in response to your comments about being open or closed-minded, that we ought not to take the attitude that we can never be wrong, as we can have misunderstandings of scripture, for example. And more importantly, the truth fears no investigation. At the very least, we should be willing to examine the facts, so religion and truth, in its purest form, does not impede progress.

I worry what are they teaching in school these days. A theory is an expanded rationalization of verifiable hypotheses. Evolution is as well proven as say germ theory, and I rarely hear about Christians protesting washing their hands. Literal word-for-word interpretation of the Bible is an 18th century invention (too long to explain, but a Google search will lend results). Catholics do not profess this, and many other non-radical denominations do not profess this.

“Although we take the Bible literally, there are still figures of speech within its pages. An example of a figure of speech would be that if someone said “it is raining cats and dogs outside,” you would know that they did not really mean that cats and dogs were falling from the sky. They would mean it is raining really hard. There are figures of speech in the Bible which are not to be taken literally, but those are obvious. (See Psalm 17:8 for example.)” Read more: http://www.gotquestions.org/

Fun fact: Gravity is not proven. Despite the “Law of Gravity”, it is not (yet) mathematically proven. Even though a “law” sounds more strict than a theory, a law is simple observation that is real but cannot yet be fully explained. “Matrix Theory” for example is simply a way show how to organize and solve data via a mathematical matrices. Their will never be a debate in math class that matrices are “at best a theory”.

If you intend to reply, I must implore you cite your sources, as neither of us are (presumably) expert scholars in biology or religion. My Cited Sources: Wikipedia, Got Questions, and Sunday School. Seriously, Wikipedia has a good “theory” write up, you should read it. Also look up “falsifiability”.

This is an interesting in-house discussion (for all to see). I’m not sure if this a devil’s advocate situation going on here. Maybe not, I don’t know.

Christianity (if that’s what we’re really talking about) isn’t close-minded, Eric. Christianity holds to exclusive truth propositions. It does so because truth is itself exclusive. If something is true then it’s opposite is false. Being close-minded is when someone won’t even countenance another point of view. So when Christians affirm that Jesus is the only way then that automatically means no other way can also be the way. That’s not being close-minded, though; that’s just the way truth works. Likewise, if we disagree with a point of view that runs contrary to biblical teaching (or is just a bad argument), that doesn’t mean we haven’t studied or thought about it. That’s close-mindedness, Eric.

Also, no one knows without a shadow of a doubt that they are correct. If we had absolute knowledge that Jesus was alive and the propitiation of our sins then there would be no need for faith. My philosophy professor always taught it to me like this: Belief in a proposition (like Jesus is God) can be anywhere between 51-100% certainty. Once we reach 100% certainty, though, there’s no need for faith; because now we have knowledge. Remember, faith is “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). Once we finally see, or as Paul characterized it, “know[ing] fully just as [we] have also been fully known” (1 Corinthians 13:12), then faith will no longer be required. Until then, none of us know much of anything without a shadow of a doubt. And to take the attitude that we should act as such, in my estimation, leads to the kinds of atrocities you referenced.

Thanks for the opportunity to interact! And thanks for your post, Logan! I never really looked at POTA that way before. Thought-provoking.